Rated 'n' Slated - Hey Colossus

Hey Colossus share five things they love and five that really piss them off.

RATED

The Ex, The Fall, etcBands that keep going. Reinvent not reform. It’s not a simple choice, nothing is…. There’s no rules and you can do what you want, but doesn’t it make you SIIIIIGH when a band reforms and the whole internet loses its shit? So this is a RATED: bands that PLOUGH ON. (Ploughing creates your own furrow, RIGHT?).

NetworkUK, Europe, there’s SO MANY excellent souls being in bands and putting bands on and putting records out and running shops. It’s like a spiders web pinning GOOD music to the planet. This is happening now, and has been happening for years, but at the moment it feels like its HOPPING. Enthusiasm, you can’t fuck with it, it ALWAYS wins out.

AgeGot no problem with being a band with all members all knocking around the 40 years old mark. Who cares. If anything its a political statement, PERSONAL POLITICS. Bands can be political and not shout from the rooftops. Sometimes you’re standing for something without realising it.

ContradictionsBeing a doom band stuck in a rut. Imagine that. Wouldn’t it be excellent if Electric Wizard put out a techno record? Bands should contradict themselves musically, confound people. There’s probably only ONE band that I’m glad never did this – Lungfish – They got it right first time. But everyone else: UP YR GAMES. I bet your whole band doesn’t JUST LISTEN TO METAL, or whatever. Fuck it, do what you want, but unless you’re Lungfish I stopped buying your stuff 3 albums ago.

Dancing (like no one’s watching)I only dance when playing, and even then it’s only the shuffle of a two left footed oaf. But i love seeing people dancing. We’re around long enough to watch some telly, climb a mountain, visit some sites, hang with people we like, and dance. My news years resolution is to dance more, even it’s just in private, with ACTUALLY NO ONE WATCHING (hopefully) to the New Fads or Dillinger.

SLATED

Visa’sWe would love to play in America. We’ve been asked to play there and we want to do it legally. Without wishing to sound TOO FUCKING HIPPY or anything, this planet is a lump floating around in space and the free movement of tiny humans who BRIEFLY dwell on it shouldn’t even be thought about. The UK actually has it right for US bands coming here it seems. But the other way? A paperwork nightmare and a financial mind blower.

Lack of public open air swimming poolsThese should be in every town of the country. Not many places bring a town together like one. Better than a shopping centre, better than a church or pub. The local councils of this country need to back these places, for health reasons if nothing else. The town I grew up in (Berkhamsted) had one, and it was AWESOME for all kids and families and the elderly and the working people. Then they shut it, and filled it in, and it remained a grassy field for years. I’ve not been back to that place for 15 years. Maybe they re-opened it. I bet they didn’t. Spending a day at one when you’re young, it was like you OWNED THE WORLD. We have one where I now live (Street), and it’s the JEWELL IN THE CROWN of this little Somerset town.

WorkI don’t mind being a postman, I didn’t mind working in a warehouse or making pizzas or carrying wood chips at a garden centre, and I do appreciate having the money to keep me in beans and tea bags and bread. But for the love of fucking god, does it have to knacker me out, does it have to eat into my day, does it have to stop me from doing what i want to do. AND: why do i spend all day at work dreaming up schemes or songs or hopes about tidying the house, then when i get home do fuck all about any of it and fall asleep or watch telly. The Minutemen had it right: “I’ll put it in simple words: working men are PISSED”

VinylI love vinyl, and like most of my friends backed it through the thin years; when it was a horse fit for glue. So this isn’t a hate on vinyl, more a hate on the MAJOR LABELS fetishizing it, and repressing RHCP and Dire Straits and the Human League and all the charity shop fodder that’s getting re-upped of late. The pressing PLANT (yes, PLANT, SINGULAR) can’t handle it. You: EMI, WARNERS, ETC, you shut your plants down. You spat your dummy out and fucked off years ago, don’t come crawling back now delaying all the NEW RELEASES with your shitty repressed wank fodder. BY THE WAY: our new album actually DOES sound better on vinyl, it’s been fairly equal in the past…but this time it’s true….

The HYPEParticularly hardcore punk hype. For a genre that hates conforming it really outdoes itself in NME style build em up quick, forget about them quick hyperbole. All these bands never get a chance to grow. Maybe it’s all part of the BURN OUT NOT FADE AWAY Sid Vicious, Darby Crash bullshit. But whatever. One 7″ is all they get, an album if their lucky. Trying to think of any bands that survived it, and maybe the one that did was Fucked Up. They managed to stretch their legs a bit. Lets see if Hank Wood and the Hammerheads or Hoax or any other PUNX manage it. I know: ‘WE DONT WANT TOO MAN, FUCK YOUR SYSTEM, PUNX’. For all I know those two have already broken up. I can’t keep up.